ms. williams-yulee case also sheds light on polling data to show the impact to have on public confidence n the court. with that 30,000-foot view the ms. williams-yulee case is this new judicial culture where judges are being forced to raise maximum money than ever before that in turn it is an arms race. when they become elected they find themselves oftentimes trapped in a culture that it perpetually challenges their ability to be fair and impartial. but it comes out of florida as one of the 39 states where judges are elected this puts the candidates it is challenging presumption. on one side to reflect the best interest of the community and they send a lot of money to get their view across while at the same time remaining impartial lenient independent so it created a series of major problems with the florida supreme court in the '70s three former chief justice's have written the amicus brief to tell the story how florida's ban did not come about because of a hypothetical conjectural issue of ethics there was not something of the political leaders read about but did 1970's the full majorit

ms. williams-yulee was running for, in limited jurisdiction in florida. you're talking about repeat player lawyers contributing, you simply would rule out any judges. recusal i think sounds good in theory. matt has already done a great job showing how it has all kinds of other problems, but for appellate courts and trial courts it is not realistic. >> i also don't think much of recusal as a very effective means of addressing any problem that exists. i'm not sure, i think tracy is thinking that it anyone who contributed triggers a recusal which strikes me as a rather extreme measure. perhaps there could be alternatives. but i guess a broader point would be i agree with andrew that i think judges don't recuse as often as they should. i think we probably disagree on which examples we would cite but that may illustrate part of the problem. but i think there also is a culture among all nine supreme court justices that they're not going to be second-guessing each other's nonrecusal decisions that this is something that, you know, that they're confident each get

ms. williams-yulee. trial judges make decisions with very limited oversight. they have discretion about what for most individuals are the most important events or interaction they'll ever have with the legal system. am i going to be held over on bail, or am i going to be released? what is the sentence going to be? what's going to happen if my partner, ex-partner fails to pay child support? very significant life decisions are in the hands of these judges. and our ability to monitor these judges once they're in office is pretty limited right? very few cases are reviewed on appeal. of those cases, the vast majority are affirmed. so while trial judges are not that visible to most of us most of us are focusing principally on the highest courts in states in and in the country, in fact, for the in fact, for the average citizen they are the law. as a consequence we should be particularly concerned and interested in the rules that govern how we choose trial judges although so often it is on the course that grabs people's attention the u.s. supreme court the most visibl

ms. williams-yulee, trial judges make decisions with very limited oversight. they have discretion about what for most individuals are the most important events or international ever have with the legal system. am i going to be held over on bail or am i going to be released? what is this is going to be? what could happen if my partner ex-partner fails to pay child support? very significant life decisions in the hands of these judges, and our ability to monitor these judges once they're in office is pretty limited. very few cases are reviewed on appeal. of those cases the vast majority are from. so while trial judges are not visible to most of us, most of us are focusing principally on the highest courts and states and in the country. in fact, for the average citizen they are the law. and as a consequence we should be deeply concerned and interested in the roles that govern how we choose trial judges, although so often the focus of course necessarily is on the courts that grabs people's attention, u.s. supreme court being the most visible example but what we tal